


the future runs through our bones

by valkyrierising



Category: Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Gen, Grid Theory, Mentions of Tommy, Rated T mostly for language, Shippy if you Squint, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 12:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13189968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valkyrierising/pseuds/valkyrierising
Summary: None of them were prepared for being the successors to an intergalactic legacy war that spanned all of human existence. High school is hell. High school while being a ranger is a special kind of hell that made them figure out if they could even pull off that balancing act.





	the future runs through our bones

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elareine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elareine/gifts).



> the names of Jason's sister is from the imdb for the movie and some liberties were taken with the names of Trini's brothers (also from the imdb.)

The problem, they realize, is that they never expected this. None of them were prepared for being the successors to an intergalactic legacy war that spanned all of human existence. High school is hell. High school while being a ranger is a special kind of hell that made them figure out if they could even pull off that balancing act.

 

For one week, they were forced to become closer than they had ever been to anyone. They did lose Billy, and they also brought him back. The Morphing Grid apparently had enough charge to bring someone back to life. All of them began training themselves harder because as Zordon said, this wasn't a quick fix. The Grid itself had been offline since the beginning of this planet, so all of them weren't in a hurry to do it again.

 

Life itself was still horribly boring, if one counted the random putty monsters that sprung up from the remains of Rita's legacy as boring. But having faced the real thing in a battle for the city, it’s a lot easier when they were appearing randomly and without Rita’s backing. While she was dead, she was still fucking with them and they spent more time using the putties as real time simulations than the Grid created (those things still hurt for being not real, even if Alpha kept trying to tell them otherwise). Hiding from their parents was still easier, considering that they still had a month's worth of detention together. But after? That was what Jason was still thinking.

 

"We could create a new club to fool them!" Billy says one day as Trini and Zack were sparring. Kim sat besides him as she snorted thinking about it.

 

"Do any of us look like we're chess club players?" She asks Billy, teasing him slightly.

 

"Yeah and also, don't we need like the school to sign off on any clubs?" Trini shouts, diving aside from a kick from Zack. She meets him with a swift kick to the back of his knees. He stumbles slightly before Trini comes at him again, a sweep at his legs.

 

"We can just continue to meet at the school, and then come here?" Zack sprawls on the ground, holding his hands up in defeat. Trini smirks, pulls him up to stand again.

 

"It's you three that need an excuse," Trini says as she uses two hands to pick him up. "My parents are just glad that I'm not in detention anymore. Zack disappears when he wants to."

 

"What if we say that we're just studying together?" Jason chimes up. He's been at the back of them, thinking about something Alpha said. Something about how the Morphing Grid was searching for something, it'd been searching for something immediately after they took Rita down.

 

"The best excuse is the simplest one," Zack smiles, pulling Trini into an almost headlock.

 

"Dude," she groans, kicking against his legs as he picks her up, swinging her around.

 

"That works," Kim hums, asking Billy to look over her work for pre-calc.

 

The new normal, Jason thinks, is that they're actually getting used to working with each other. It feels nice almost, to have a team that shared a connection that went deeper than they realized. He also thinks that it's something none of them are entirely prepared for.

 

\---

 

Jason wants to be a good leader and he's annoyed he's feeling like this. Not for nothing, but he was chosen to be the Red Ranger and as such, he's seen as de facto leader. (Kim scoffed when he said as much, saying that Pink would be a better leader. But even then, he doesn't make any choices that the others don't sign on off. They work together, or they find a way, but it's hard when the fate of the world quite honestly rests on their shoulders.)

 

Kim is absolutely determined to make them all be the best, bringing in what she calls her kickass flare, so that when they form the Zord they are prepared. She makes them do her old cheer routines, where she makes them get into pyramids and tells them if they aren't building up their core, she'd fight them herself.

 

He thinks he loves Billy, but he also thinks he's in love with everyone in there team and the absolute power they are able to achieve together. He knows that when it comes down to it, he'd die for everyone on there, he's sure of it - and the thing is, Billy did die and he feels helpless every time he remembers the dockyard. He makes sure that Billy spars with him too, that he builds on some muscle. He also makes all of them learn how to swim together as well, encumbered and not, because he never wants to be caught unaware again.

 

The others roll their eyes, jumping into the pool as they do so, but he knows they feel the same. Muscle memory, is what he thinks it is, how being with them feels both awkward and right. Like they'd all been waiting for this moment, for the Grid to awaken and to connect them all. The others stay quiet when he tells them as much, before Zack grabs him and dunks him under water. He makes sure to hold onto him as well, the both of them wrestling underwater.

 

\---

 

Zack is pretty open to all of them, and he's pretty sure he just needed some people to let off steam with because he's easily the chattiest of all of them. Zack makes them all fight with him and he catches them unaware multiple times. He's a deceptively looking skinny dude, not like the boys on the football team. He's lithe, a swimmer's body and he catches himself staring too long every time they get out of the pool, or that they get too close during the spar sessions. Kim shoves him aside too, widening her eyes in agreement until she makes contact with his and ducks away.

 

What he notices the most is that Trini and Zack spar a lot together and hang out together. Zack no longer hits on her, choosing to treat her the way he treats Pearl. A brother and sister combination. A little bit of rough housing and a lot of bickering. Trini and Zack are most physical with each other. He comes at her unaware and she goes on the defensive, the two of them a flurry of kicks and punches. Where Trini fights with the annoyance he rises in her along with the putties that arrive, Zack is easily their best defensive fighter. It’s little things like that he finds himself assessing more and more daily, thinking like a quarterback to get the touchdown.

 

\---

 

Trini throws rolls of balled up paper at Zack and picks fights with him too. She tries to help Billy when he brings his projects to the cave, listening intently as he rattles off directions. Kim and her hang out too, the café their unofficial spot besides the cave they all go to. They dance together sometimes too. She talks with the others a lot more but not him. He tries not to take it too personally, knowing her experience as the new kid with popular kids hasn't been so good.

 

Her family though, is still another layer to peel through that she hasn't really discussed them outside of the emotionally fraught campfire.

 

He thinks that her family will be too much of a sore point, especially when they take into account how much her being gay made them so unable to cope with her. He can't begin to understand, unsure of his own ideas of who he does and doesn't like, but he hopes that his father wouldn't do that to him. The only thing he can really only do is hope that the campfire helped lighten the load for her. Her posturing, physically, seems as if it a burden was lifted from her. She still walks around with her headphones and beanie combination, a cultivated look of boredom and annoyance, but they're less like shielding for her against the whole world.

 

He's walking towards the base when he sees that she's meditating on her lone rock. He knows that sometimes they all come up there by themselves. Alpha says that the Morphing Grid is still searching, knowing that there's a ranger out there somewhere waiting to join into them. Something about the hum of the Grid calls to all of them; it’s what made it so that when Billy detonated his homemade dynamite, they were all there to collect the power coins. He’s sure that Alpha doesn't know what he’s talking about, but Zordon does. He knows so because he caught a glimpse of what he used to bring Billy back when they were in the Megazord together, felt the echo of the past rangers and felt the energy of future rangers to come.

 

"Hey," he says, making his way towards her area. Her headphones are on, her eyes are closed. He kicks on the floor a few times to get her attention.

 

"Hey," she says, pulling her headphones to her neck.

 

"Can you show me that meditation thing you were doing?" He says, sitting right beside her. She gives him a sideways look and nods.

 

"You just breathe in, breathe out. Forget about everything that's bothering you for now." They spend at least five minutes in silence, silently meditating before he interrupts the silence.

 

"You ever think about not being a ranger?"

 

"You're terrible at this meditation thing," she responds, cracking an eye open. "I guess? It's kind of the best thing to happen because we're like ... superheroes. But it also means there's things after us. As if being gay wasn't hard enough when your parents are weird about it, the universe goes and does this shit." She cracks a look at him, like she’s daring him to say something. He snickers slightly, earning a small smile from her.

 

"I think it would be the worst thing to happen to me, honestly. If I were to stop being a ranger, I mean. It feels right to be in a team with all of you guys."

 

Trini stands abruptly, walking away from him to walk around aimlessly. She swings her arms across her chest, inhaling deeply as she looks at him from a distance.

 

"Do you feel the Grid inside of you too? Like, it wants us to find whoever the sixth one is?"

 

He nods in response.

 

“Thank god, I thought I was going crazy. It doesn’t talk but it kind of does - inside your head. Like it needs us to know that we all to be together. It’s super weird,” she rushes out. “God, you weren’t expecting that. Why ask me if I didn’t want to be a ranger?”

 

"I just wanted to know if you're okay. You looked tense." She looks taken aback briefly before she deflects, ducking her head to the floor as she watches her foot aim at a rock away from him.

 

"You know my parents are weird," she shrugs. "I still disappear to this spot. I talk more with my brothers and you guys sometimes. I’m still trying to figure out what it means to Power Ranger. Why on earth I’m even with you guys."

 

"You wanna tell me about your brothers instead?" She shakes her head a little, looking at him.

 

"Not today, Jason. Thanks for this though," she looks around awkwardly before leaving. He sighs, stays at the site for a little while. 

 

\---

 

"Ricky and Tony," she says one day. It's only her, Kim and him down at their base. It still feels weird to call it a base despite it being created from the previous rangers. Like it's just a dream that’ll disappear as soon as they finish what they're supposed to do and end Rita once and for all.

 

Zack wasn't there, said something about looking out for his mom and Billy was helping his mom do something technical at home. The three of them dragged in some kind of rubber padding down to the area because while the stone was smoothed down, it hurt like hell to land on it. Especially when Alpha puts the putty simulation to medium. He thinks it's a bloodthirsty little creature out to get them, even if the others laugh at his comments.

 

"They're my younger brothers. I saw that you had a little sister," she says, a bit like she's uncomfortable. Kimberly's doing something complicated with flips to the side. He thinks there's no way they could ever pull that off in the zord all together, since even walking is a challenge. Jason smiles because getting Trini to talk has always been a little bit harder. Her natural mistrustfulness of everyone, but especially him and Kim at the beginning is something her tells himself not to be offended by.

 

"Yeah, her name is Pearl, and she's a brat."

 

"I always wanted a little sister to be honest," Trini says as she places her phone on a shortened stone beam. He thinks it's something weird or martial arts that they put up from youtube tutorials. None of them are very well at fighting and they're all trying to teach themselves and each other. "Not that Ricky and Tony aren't fun, but I think having a little sister would have been pretty cool."

 

"You're free to babysit her anytime," he says, following what she's doing from the video.

 

"Hah," she turns to grin at him. "If we ever had free time outside of this, maybe."

 

They’re in the middle of what can only be called a bastardization of some martial arts move before she speaks to him.

 

“I don’t know if I’m supposed to be a ranger or not, but the Grid wants me to be a part of this. It wants all of us to be a part of it. Like it needs all six of us to feel like it’s whole, but that the five of us are already whole together. I don’t know about you guys but I was not in a good head space before we met together. This is making it better for me, that it feels like a natural extension.”

 

He doesn’t say anything for a bit, just nods in response.

 

“I think so too.”

 

\---

 

Kimberly still feels weird amongst all of them. When she trains, she'll do it herself and furiously. At the end of the day, she never would have met any of them were it not for the shit she pulled to get her into detention. And if she weren't at detention, she never would have left it early, and she wouldn't have gone to the construction site to the waterfall and she wouldn't have followed Jason to the site of the power coins. A series of choices made impulsively that she never would have gotten to had she been a better person, less of a brat - less of cruel girl with a bad temper. 

 

Billy and Trini? Nowhere even near her radar. Zack? He never went to school enough for him to register on her radar. and even if he did, she wouldn't have given him more than a thorough once over. And Jason? He was on the football team but none of the guys interested her, even if they did try to chase after her and her ex-friends.

 

Billy is nice though, and he always means what he says. With Amanda and Harper, they said mean shit to each other constantly. They did it though in a way that they could pass it off as jokes but she knows it grated under her skin. It grated under theirs too, how they were all casually cruel to one another. There were times where they dropped the bullshit enough to be honest, when their friendship was re-evaluated when she would bring Harper home from parties when she was too wasted, or that she chased the football boys away from them when they were at parties. She only ever really drank enough to get her comfortably buzzed, but not so much that she was unaware of what was happening.

 

None of these guys bullshit with her. She thinks it’s probably something to do with how they’re all connected through the power coins, and almost dying together, or even the campfire, but they put her at ease in a way that she hadn’t felt in forever. They don’t expect anything from her, besides her A-Game when they train. They aren’t hounding her for her opinions or what to wear or what boys she thinks she has her eyes on.

 

It feels weird, to hang out with any of them anywhere. Part of her feels that she's unworthy of being a ranger with them that she smothers away. She made bad choices and she had to live with them. Now she had to prove she was a better person, someone who grew - what better way would it be than to be the best damn Pink Ranger with these guys?

 

Trini and her have their after-school café area where they do work. Sometimes they even sit by each other in their classes where she blocks her away from Amanda and Harper and pass notes when they're supposed to be paying attention to the class. She tries to make her laugh, to make the vague mistrust she can see still pass Trini's eyes that's replaced by humor. They're all still learning to be friendly with people when others haven’t been the kindest but no one ever got anywhere being scared and she makes it her personal goal to make sure that everyone else knew these were _her_ friends.

 

The Nerd Squad (she's not being rude, honestly, they call themselves that) seem to love her every time she sits besides Billy. She can still hear the snickering of Harper and Amanda that she flips them off and continues on. Billy likes her, for some reason, but she guesses that them quite honestly never interacting before was for the best. They know her as she is talked about by the school, but they know her in better ways. Like how Trini will be there with her in silent solidarity, passing notes and doodles, or Jason positions himself to the side when she doesn't feel like talking so no one will bother her. Billy will talk to her about anything and she appreciates it. And Zack she sees more outside of class.

 

Sometimes she'll go to him when he doesn't come to class. During her study hall period, she'll leave campus as quietly as possible. Most of the time, he can be found in the tiny house with his mom. She'll stop by to get something for lunch for them sometimes, or some of his schoolwork. They've been working on trying to get him, at minimum, a GED if he won't return but it's a lot harder when he's the only provider for his mom. She worries for him sometimes, that he's got only her to look after, that she can leave so quickly.

 

She never thought about the possibility of her own parents dying until Zack. It was something she never thought about. Her parents would live until she was old enough to be on her own, probably after they bothered her into marriage someday, but they would live for a long time. Zack's mom was running on a timer that couldn't be stopped, just halted due to the treatment. She knows Trini doesn't talk to her own parents often but her mom is a nurse and she tries to get medicine for Zack's mom when she can.

 

It's just sad, she thinks, that Zack was alone. Even though he had them, she wonders how long he'd been alone that he's content to go radio silent on them sometimes.

 

"Postmates," she deadpans as soon as he opens the door, grinning at the confusion that's replaced by a smile.

 

"What are you doing here?"

 

"It's my study hall period, thought you could use some company." She holds the bag up, asking for permission to asleep. He shakes his head.

 

"Mom's asleep, we can sit outside though,"

 

"I didn't even know you'd be here, to be honest. I know you said you work sometimes and I didn't know," she says when he takes them to the picnic table. She takes out the burgers and fries, bringing a soda for him and a water for her.

 

"Thanks Kim," he says, and she sees the lines under his eyes clearly.

 

"Have you slept? Like at all?" He shakes his head a little, dumping his fries into the tray holding the bag.

 

"Work and my mom, dude."

 

"I know but still. You've got a team. You're always free to crash with Jason. I would offer my house too but like, my parents get weird when a boy spends time near me.” He gives her a lopsided smile. There's ketchup on the side of his face that grabs a napkin to clean it away. She grins in return.

 

"It's cool Kim," he smiles, biting into the hamburger. "This is good too."

 

She hums in contentment, taking a bite of her own burger and they scroll through her Instagram feed together or she'll pull out her laptop and pull something up for them to watch.  

\---

 

Billy thinks they're all incredibly cool. He also knows that people call him weird and a geek but it hasn't bothered him before and it definitely doesn't bother him now when he and his friends are a bunch of superheroes.

 

Numbers are calming. He goes through a bunch of calculations daily. His mind is always working. Sometimes he thinks that if someone took his brain and cracked it open (not in an evil scientist way), that they'd see it's almost like a clock.

 

These guys are his friends. 

 

And deeper inside, he knows that they watched him die. He thinks about it often too, but not in the way that most traumatic events would register to people. It plays a lot more like a dream and the Grid is involved in that it shows it to him, like an old-time reel that blacks out different parts. In some versions, he can hear Trini's crying. In others, he can only feel the blackness of the sea submerging and dragging him down.

 

The Grid is in all of them, it helps them be rangers and it also connects them to each other. Their goal is to defeat Rita and find the sixth ranger that it wants. It feels incomplete - it's an almost completed puzzle, but there's a missing corner piece that fell when you took it out.

 

But sometimes, and he doesn't tell this to everyone else, but he thinks that Grid is inside him as well. Not in a weird way either, but like it's a part of him. It makes him aware of the power of the coins with the dinosaurs they come from. He can feel the power intertwined with the energy of the previous rangers who held the coins before they did, a connection to the beginning of Earth. He can even feel the echoes of the rangers that came before them, like bursts of joy when he sees the others in their suit. It worries him slightly, but if anything, he's just more aware of the Grid working in strange and mysterious ways with and around them.

 

It ... protects them and it also seems to chastise them when they are doing reckless things with their powers. It doesn't like when they needlessly jump from long distances to other places but it'll guide them. It's holding their hand, in a really weird way.

 

Jason is his best friend - all of them are - but he knows Jason is. He respects his boundaries but he also stays close to him. He cracks an eye every time he makes a joke, and he'll laugh. He'll find him during their classes and do his best to not distract him (but sometimes they'll throw each other paper planes when the teacher isn't looking). Jason is someone he is glad to call his friend and he knows that the Grid works in mysterious ways but he knows that the Grid likes when Red and Blue are together.

 

"Alpha," he asks Alpha one day when he's tinkering with some robotic project he picked up before he left. "Is the Grid alive?"

 

"The Grid isn't alive like you would think a human is. The Grid is a collection of ranger and the essence of the Cenozoic era."

 

"Like a battery?"

 

"Yes," Alpha says before he disappears to a hidden door that opens for him.

 

"Cool," he breathes out, thinking of all the ways they could tap into the Grid.

 

\---

 

Zack knows Trini is like him, that they want people to talk to, but they're both worried about what people will say. They're outsiders. The freaks. When he was in middle school, kids used to bully him for his ratty clothing. He shot up during puberty thought, and then he started to learn how to fight. His mom never liked it though.

 

But then she got sick, and it was everything he needed to stop going to school. He also needed to focus on her, so it's not like he needed any friends besides the few that he would hang out with who ditched classes or smoked joints underneath the bleachers. Growing taller meant people mistook him for older than he was and he was able to work faster. He was a fast food cashier before someone at the garbage area took him in.

 

It was a steady paying thing and he didn't have to deal with people that often. It was really fucking lonely to be honest. He loved when he saw Trini take up the lone rock away from his usual hideout to do her Karate-Kid schtick and meeting the others was the coolest thing. He was a superhero now, in a superhero team. They got him in a way other people hadn't.

 

He still couldn't save his mom, but she seemed to smile more when he told her that he was going back to school. And he did sometimes, to catch up with the others and get his schoolwork. There are times where he'll ask the others to get notes from his classes. Trini studies with him because she's like crazy smart when she's not being emo, and she can explain what Billy tries to tell him in an understandable way. He thinks that knowing them is probably the greatest thing the universe has ever done for him.

 

\---

 

Twice a week, they make it a point to hang out together and do things that isn't ranger training or schoolwork. Fun things, like football games, or the theater that's thirty minutes outside of the city. The brisk sea air mingling in with the afternoon days as they all sang off-key together, gathering closely as Kim made them all take selfies together. They were kids too and they needed that reminder just as often as they could considering that each of them could disconnect so easily. It's a process, to learn how to rely on others. They're doing okay.

 

"You guys wanna check out the new place, Ernie's?" Jason asks them on a Friday afternoon as the bell rings. 

 

"The Juice Bar?" Billy asks as he slings her bag over her shoulder, following him.

 

"Rumor has it that it's also gonna be like a dojo as a part of it or like some kind of gym," Trini beams at them. Zack made it to class today and  bends slightly to let her jump on him, piggybacking as soon as they get a few feet from the school. Jason’s car is packed near the end of the parking lot and they make their way there.

 

"Forget about that, who wants to know about the new kid Tommy that finally showed up? I know things like why exactly they've been MIA," Kim says, hands in her leather jacket as she leads them out the school, right beside Jason as the rest of them follow in formation for his truck.

 

They think that this is what it means to find a group of people you can call your own. It feels a lot like comfort.


End file.
